Interviewed by Michael Juvinall – Horror Society
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The Woman in Black 2 Angel of Death is back to haunt theaters on January 2, 2015.
For the sequel, we jump 40 years after the events of the first film as World War 2 is raging in London and a group of children are being evacuated from the city due to bombings. The children are taken to safety in the country and are staying at the still abandoned Eel Marsh House. The children and their guardians, played by Phoebe Fox and Helen McCrory begin to experience unnatural occurrences and tragic events. With the help of a young military pilot played by Jeremy Irvine, they must save the children from the sinister force they have unknowingly awakened, The Woman in Black, because she never forgives, she never forgets…she never left!
Horror Society had the opportunity to speak with the film’s co-star Jeremy Irvine. Read on as he talks how difficult it is to act scared for a horror film, some of the adventures he had on the film and his co-stars.
Horror Society: I wanted to thank you for speaking with me, I watched the film recently and I thoroughly enjoyed it and your part in the movie.
Jeremy Irvine: Great, thank you.
Horror Society: You play the character “Harry” who is an English pilot during the Second World War and basically, you become embroiled in a supernatural mystery.
Jeremy Irvine: He sure does.
Horror Society: Harry is kind of a complex character with a few surprises. What was the most challenging aspect of playing the part for you?
Jeremy Irvine: It was actually a lot of fun. It’s always nice to play a character that maybe is pretending to be something that he’s not. It’s kind of what we do as people all the time. We’re all kind of pretending to be something that we’re not a lot of time and trying to portray a front. They’re often the most realistic characters to play. That was very exciting. Like all of the characters in the story and the story itself, he has his own past haunting him and I think what really appealed to me about that was the depth of the characters. The story itself had a real class to it, a real proper movie. If you took all the horror elements out of it, it would still stand up on its own as a drama.
Horror Society: Right, I completely agree with you on that. Some of the things you get to do in the film look like they would be pretty fun especially the water stuff. How was it to do that?
Jeremy Irvine: I can’t tell you how much fun I had on this film. I got to ride a motorbike from the Second World War that basically had no miles on the clock. They just found it in the back of someone’s shed and I got to be around eight kids everyday who I kind of adopted as my little minions and we spent most of the time tormenting Phoebe Fox on set and trying to scare her and things like that.
Horror Society: That does sound like fun.
Jeremy Irvine: It was a lot of fun.
Horror Society: The locations and sets in the movie, they looked really creepy on film. Were they as creepy in person when you were actually doing the filming?
Jeremy Irvine: We shot in some pretty dark places. We shot in one quite large women and children’s prison from the 1800’s which supposedly is one of the most haunted places in London. Yeah, it was not a very nice place to be with all the scratch marks and things in the cells and kids were in prison there and stuff. Then we shot at Pinewood Studios and every time I get to work in Pinewood it’s exciting because of all the history that has been made there. We shot in some not so nice places and pretty great places as well.
Horror Society: Interesting. This is your first horror movie that you’ve worked on. Is it hard to act scared in a horror movie or do the sets and effects make it easy?
Jeremy Irvine: It’s exhausting! It’s very tiring acting scared all the time. How often are you that scared for that long a period of time consistently? Not often. You just have to play it straight, play it for real and hope for the best.
Horror Society: I guess people don’t really think about it. They watch a horror movie and they see people looking scared but you don’t think about how difficult it is to act being scared.
Jeremy Irvine: Yeah, that’s right.
Horror Society: Aside from acting scared, is working on a gothic horror movie any different than working on any other type of film for you?
Jeremy Irvine: No, I don’t think so. I think you play it for real and try to do the best job you can. It was a lot of fun, I think because we knew we were making a movie that the first movie was very successful. There’s a lot to be said about being in a movie that so many people like.
Horror Society: Do you like horror movies yourself?
Jeremy Irvine: I wouldn’t say I’m a horror fan, but two of my favorite movies are The Sixth Sense and The Others.
Horror Society: You got to work alongside Phoebe Fox and Helen McCrory. How was it to work with them?
Jeremy Irvine: They both play incredibly strong women in the movie. It’s lovely to do a film with a strong female lead. They both have an incredible reservoir of emotion they can pull on whenever they want it. I remember doing a scene with Phoebe which was a very emotional scene for her and every single time she pulled on these emotions. A lot of people can’t do that, they just don’t have that wealth of emotion at hand; they run out of tears after time.
Horror Society: You and Phoebe seem to have good chemistry on screen.
Jeremy Irvine: Yeah, Phoebe’s great, we had a lot of fun.
Horror Society: You also hinted about this earlier. I read that you are a military enthusiast and it must have been a great opportunity for you to play with toys from that era and wear the authentic clothing and all.
Jeremy Irvine: Sure, yeah. It was a lot of fun.
Horror Society: What do you have coming up after The Woman in Black 2?
Jeremy Irvine: The next movie coming out will be a film with Michael Douglas called The Reach, I think it will be coming out in April. After that, I have a movie called Stonewall, about the gay rights movement in 1969 in New York. Then after that, there’s a movie called Fallen, which is based on these bestselling young adult series. Yes, it’s a busy year coming up.
Horror Society: That’s a good thing right?
Jeremy Irvine: It sure is it sure is.
Horror Society: We’re pretty much out of time. I wanted to say it’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I wish you the best of luck with the film.
Jeremy Irvine: Thank you. You have a wonderful holiday season. Happy Holidays.
Horror Society: Same to you, bye now.
Watch the trailer for The Woman in Black 2 Angel of Death here,
